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SPRINGFIELD - Though it was more than four decades ago, Dale Parker has a vivid memory of herself as a young black high school student whose love of science and machinery confounded, her teachers and counselors.
They were steering her toward what seemed to be an unusual career, given her talents.
"They told me to be a hairdresser. Can you imagine? I pretty much ignored them," laughed Parker, now 58 and an independent consultant who spent much of her career as a chemist at the former Monsanto Co.
Parker was one of 10 panelists who met with 85 city high school juniors yesterday at a luncheon designed to inspire girls to study and pursue careers in mathematics, science and technology. The event was held on the campus of Springfield Technical Community College.
The program, sponsored by the Springfield School Department, the National Science Foundation and the National Center for Telecommunication Technologies, featured chemists, engineers, computer consultants, a geologist and two college students, all of them women in careers or pursuing careers that typically attract men.
They described their journeys as isolating, exciting and always rewarding.
"It took a long time for me to see myself as a scientist," said Erica Wilson, who is about to enroll in medical school.
"I thought all scientists were white men with white lab coats. It took a lot of visual stretching to think of a scientist as a short black woman who wears a leather jacket and boots," she said.
Donna Grici is a geologist for O'Reilly, Talbot and Okun of Springfield. She and her sister are the first two in their family to have attended college, and she urged students to overlook obvious roadblocks.
"If I can do it, you can do it. I come from a blue collar family that didn't think much about college,'' said Grici.
Trishna Ray Chaudhuri is an engineer at Bayer Corp. of Springfield. She remembers college courses at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., where she was the only woman in a room crowded with men.
"At first I thought all the women must have been out sick that day, but pretty soon I realized that's how it was," said Chaudhuri, whose chemist father encouraged her throughout her childhood to pursue her love of science and mathematics.
For their part, high school students appreciated the luncheon program.
"I thought it was interesting. This makes me more interested in computer science," said Miranda Ledet, who is 15 and a student at the High School of Science and Technology.
Thuy Huynk of the High School of Commerce said mathematics and science are her favorite subjects, but hearing career women talk of the paths they chose was inspiring.
"It was very good. It made me feel like I have something in common with a lot of them," said Thuy, who is 16.
Deborah Gendron, School Department supervisor for the National Science Foundation grant program, said the luncheon was meant to help female students think about non-traditional career choices.
"Hopefully, this will spark an interest in them. We're trying so hard to get kids, especially females and minorities, interested in these fields," Gendron said.
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